azb
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Hi everyone,

I know my Tower of Chaos and Twenty Five Levels of Tendry are my holds that do RPG the
way it was designed for, like making decisions about which monster to kill or which key to spend to get the optimal score,

But what if I made a hold that was like being at the arcade but it's turn based rather than live action?

I could do for 5 games:

Dig Man/SubTerra like game

Mario Bros like game

Racing game like Mario Kart

Asteroids like game

Zelda like game

I think all of these things I could make using RPG scripting, and use custom sprites to make it look convincingly and professionally like the real deal rather than DROD RPG.

Sounds like an exciting idea?


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[Last edited by azb at 07-07-2024 12:54 AM : Typo, hold and not "hols"]

azb
Level: Smiter
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For my SubTerra like game, I will do detail wise:

Add dirt, rounded walls and expanding pipes from Subterra 1 for terrain objects.

Add rocks, diamonds, bombs, emeralds, and doors, keys that are used up at doors with the matching color, water, and a floaty life saver for non terrain objects.

Add spiders, drakes, knights and the Mountain King for monsters.

For my Mario Bros game:

Do it the way the original Mario did it, but use a different behavior for Bowser than just shooting fireballs and jumping, to make him more challenging

For my Mario Kart game:

Do it the way Mario Kart 64 did it, same power ups and hazards as that game

For my Asteroids game:

Do the same things as the original Asteroids, but also add a new final boss enemy that is even harder to defeat and attacks even more aggressively than the UFO

For my Zelda game:

Make the final boss more challenging, but otherwise it's the same idea as the original 80s Zelda games for the NES or GameBoy

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mauvebutterfly
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Just a quick warning here: using assets from other games will result in your hold being rejected from HA. Using custom assets that you make yourself should be fine as long as there isn't any copyright infringement.

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kieranmillar
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Worth mentioning that the normal DROD 5 TSS engine is much better suited for custom elements than DROD RPG's, which is spun off of DROD 3 TCB engine. There's just way more functionality available.

The RPG 2 engine, when it comes out, will have a bunch of these improvements ported over but it still won't be as feature rich as the Second Sky engine. I'm curious what it is about RPG specifically that makes this your preferred engine for these ideas.

We already have a normal DROD hold that's heavily based on Zelda. Check out ZelDROD. But of all your ideas, this one is also probably the most suited for RPG, no reason why you couldn't make an RPG hold with a more exploration-based focus.

azb
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I was going to make my own graphics and sounds but just use the same ideas, because I know copyright is messy and awkward for everyone, DROD community or not.

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azb
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I just thought it would be a fun challenge to make non DROD based ideas in DROD RPG, like other people have done already.

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averagemoe
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I once had a vision for an RPG hold that works like Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, where you make rooms as you go through the level. Of course it would still use DROD:RPG mechanics for basic combat and stuff.

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azb
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Yeah, and that last part is my plan here besides using different graphics so it's not a copyright violation - use greckles for diamonds when you pick up a diamond for instance, or use REP points for number of laps completed in the Mario Kart game, and things like that.

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mauvebutterfly
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Something to consider is that DROD and DROD RPG are both turn-based puzzle games. While you can use the engines to implement other game styles, they will immediately start with a debuff since the engine wasn't built for them. To give an example from another engine: RPG Maker can be used to make a variety of game types, but anything that isn't a turn-based JRPG is going to be a huge pain to implement and without substantial rewriting of the underlying engine the resulting game won't be that good in the end anyway.

DROD examples from The Second Sky: there is a tower defence game implemented here, and it frankly isn't very fun or interesting. I'd rate it as the worst tower defence game experience I've ever had. Admittedly I don't play a lot of TD games and don't care for the genre, but I'd still choose any non-Englos Defence option over what we got in DROD. Likewise, the Lemmings inspired level, while better than Englos Defence, was still one of the weaker levels in TSS overall.

The point is that the further your intended gameplay deviates from what DROD or DROD RPG is designed for, the worse the experience is likely to become for anyone playing your game mode. I'll even call out a well-liked DROD RPG hold in this regard: Fetch the Pie. There's a combat arena later on that utilises a bunch of mobile enemies and it's honestly pretty miserable to play through. The scripted boss encounters, while interesting in theory, are not things that I enjoy while replaying the hold. In fact, the final boss feels so unfair and arbitrary that I'd rate it as my single least liked thing in the entire hold. It's innovative and does something in the DROD RPG engine that the game wasn't intended for, and it's a miserable experience.

Looking at your proposed list of games, the only one I'd have even the slightest interest in playing is the Zelda one, since I think that the fundamentals of Zelda are in line with DROD RPG: exploring dungeons, using accessories to solve puzzles, and taking accessories to future dungeons or to access more of the overworld. This sounds like a solid DROD RPG concept. The rest of those games just don't seem like they'd be any fun to play in the DROD RPG engine. For instance, Mario Kart is a real-time racing game. How are you planning on making that interesting in a deterministic turn-based engine?

If you do plan on implementing all of these, I highly suggest you spend a lot of time thinking about how to translate the mechanics over to DROD RPG in a way that would be fun before you actually start scripting anything.

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azb
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Yeah, I get that too, and my original plan was for the Mario Kart game to make you move forward one space in the direction you face constantly without being able to stand still at all, but you're right that the turn based nature of DROD means it would not be as fun to play as the real deal, so these are probably not good ideas for DROD RPG after you explain it that way.

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azb
Level: Smiter
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So instead of things that are too different from DROD, how about a hold where you play as a Gray Man and start off with the same stats as him, and it's about 5 levels long rather than a big epic list of 25 levels for no reason for my next RPG hold, and every decision will count and there won't be trivial decisions like in Twenty Five Levels of Tendry?

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